E3: Supernatural Interactivity

Share.

World Class freestyle MC raps about games.

By Spence D.

Supernatural is the undisputed king of freestyle emcees. He's an underground legend who has managed to survive in a rap game that has increasingly gotten more and more commercial over the years. But Supernatural's reliance on solid rhyme skills and deft, off-the-top-of-the-dome wordplay has secured his place in the hip-hop musical pantheon for generations to come.

But domination of the underground microphone scene isn't the only thing on Supernatural's plate these days, though. Along with DJ Rocky Rock, the West Coast DMC champion, Supernatural supplied theme music to Midway's upcoming NBA Ballers game; Supernatural wrote the game's titular track, while Rocky composed a slew of background beats.

The duo were recently in LA for the massive E3 convention and as part of Midways "Live 2003" showcase, where they threw down a rousing live mini-set and then found time to entertain our questions in the green room afterwards.

IGN: I gotta ask the inevitable: are you guys gamers?

Supernatural: Oh, no question. I don't know how hard Rocky is, but I am hard. I play a lot of video games. One of my favorite games of all time is SS Tricky, SSX, both of them, and I enjoy SSX 3 now. NBA Street, Grand Theft Auto, I play a lot, Max Payne. I like a lot of role-playing games. Resident Evil when it first came out, you know all those types of games.

DJ Rocky Rock: I'm all right with it. I'm not one of those guys who goes full throttle into it, but I'm always on SOCOM. That's a crazy game. And like NBA Jam back in the days [laughs]. That's Old School. I used to love that.

IGN: Game playing doesn't interfere with your DJ technique, does it? You know, sore thumbs and wrists from playing games so much?

Supernatural: My thumbs are f@#ked-up from playing Freestyle. I had tendonitis in both my thumbs for a minute [laughs]. It's cool, though.

DJ Rocky Rock and MC Supernatural at E3.

IGN: How'd you get hooked-up to do the theme song for NBA Ballers?

Supernatural: I went on tour with Jurassic 5 about a year-and-a-half ago and we did the Word of Mouth Tour and Johnny Vignocchi [from Midway] was at the show and he'd seen us perform. We exchanged numbers and through Chali 2Na he got at me and asked me if I wanted to get on the game and I told him 'Yes' and it was history after that. So thanks to Johnny for being into hip-hop and having his ear to the street, well that's how that whole thing transpired.

IGN: You're known for being the freestyle king, so how was it having to come up with a rap that fit into the game? I mean did they give you any guidelines or were you free to run with it?

Supernatural: They gave me like a little format of how they wanted me to approach it and I took it from there. You know, I just basically put my flavor to it, you know things that I knew of from the basketball world and from growin' up in the neighborhood, added it all together and just made the rhyme. That's how it came about. They gave me a few topics on a list, some references.

IGN: It sounds like it wasn't much different than what you do during your live show, you know, when you ask the crowd to give you different words or objects and then you craft a rhyme around those.

Supernatural: Yeah.

IGN: Do you like doing that, where somebody else gives you the idea or the jumping off point and you build upon it?

Supernatural: They didn't really give me the idea. There were certain players that had to be mentioned, there were certain requirements through the NBA that had to be mentioned in the game. So I had to work that stuff in there. It doesn't matter if somebody gives me an idea. In this particular situation, this was a specialty project. So it had to be written like that since I was doing it for Midway. There were certain requirements and certain things that had to be said. So, no, I don't mind when people give me topics like that.

IGN: I noticed that during your live set you tend to favor the number 3. You had a song called "Three MCs" where you emulated the style of three well-known rappers. You also did a freestyle where you asked the audience to supply you with three words that you eventually rapped about. Is there any sort of religious significance behind that? I mean what's the deal with the number 3, is it your magic number?

Supernatural: No, I just like the number three because it's completion: knowledge, wisdom, and understanding; man, woman, and child; it's as easy as 1, 2, 3. That's where that little thing comes from. And it keeps it simple. If I did 5 words I'm quite sure you only have so much time to really perform, so you have to condense it. So it's easy to just do three of each.